


Have a Little Faith

by AliuIce0814



Category: Captain America, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Tony Stark Has A Heart, dreams do come true if you're captain america, everybody steve loves is dead, never startle an ex-army agent, or are they?, steve is a lonely 94-year-old virgin, the avengers watch casablanca, tony misses agent coulson, tony plays matchmaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/pseuds/AliuIce0814
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe some people would be grateful for apparent immortality, but all Steve Rogers could think about was what he had lost to it. Tony Stark, being both a better man and more stubborn than his father, tried to fix this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have a Little Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my grandma and all the other women who, like Peggy, helped the Allies win WWII.

            It hit Steve at the strangest moments, like when Tony put in _Casablanca_ on movie night. Behind his back, Steve clenched his hands into fists. He loved this movie, once upon a time, but now every time Humphrey Bogart said a line, Steve remembered Bucky imitating him one drunken night in between missions. When Ilsa first walked into Rick's Café Américain, Peggy had slipped her hand into Steve’s under the arm of the seat where no one could see. By the time the Avengers reached the scene where Rick moaned, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine!”, Steve couldn’t stand it anymore. He got up abruptly, ignoring the others’ protests. Once the elevator deposited him on the gym floor, Steve ran.

            By the time Tony caught up with him, the remains of three punching bags lay scattered around Steve’s feet. Steve gave his punching bag a right hook and ignored the way Tony hesitated at the edge of the gym floor.

            “Steve. Steve. Cap!”

            “Go away, Stark.”

            “Hey.” When Steve slammed his fist into the punching bag, Tony caught the bag and held it steady. Steve barely resisted the temptation to keep hitting. “Listen to me. Okay? Listen! I’m sorry about the movie. I didn’t realize it would trigger you—but Steve, it’s been seventy years.” Tony’s voice gentled. That just made everything worse. “I can hide old movies and ban music from this tower, but there are World War II references everywhere outside of this tower. You’ve got to accept it eventually, or it’ll kill you.”

            “The way you’ve accepted what happened to Agent Coulson?”

            Steve knew it was a low blow even as he said it. He just glimpsed the way Tony’s eyes darkened and widened, as if Steve had hit him in the stomach, before Tony turned and fled.

            Steve wished he didn’t feel guilty for it.

            He tired to go back to his punching bag, but his heart wasn’t in it. Every time he imagined punching Schmidt in the throat or swinging out to rescue Bucky, Steve saw Tony flinch and run. With a grimace, Steve punched the bag into the wall. He kept forgetting how fragile this Stark could be. One the outside, Tony Stark had twice his father’s ego. The inside was a different story.

            Besides, Tony was nearly as good of a man as Bucky had been. He’d laid himself on the line for everyone. He’d cared about Phil Coulson, too—not the way Steve cared about Bucky, but still cared enough that using Coulson’s death against him should have been off-limits. It was off-limits. Steve just couldn’t seem to stop anymore.

            With a sigh, Steve unwrapped his hands. “Jarvis?” he called hesitantly.

            “Yes, Captain Rogers?”

            Steve hesitated. No matter how many times Tony had assured him that Jarvis was friendly, talking to a disembodied voice was still unnerving. “Do you mind telling me where Tony is?”  
            “He is in his workshop, Captain.”

            “Oh.” Steve should have known. Tony’s workshop was the equivalent of Steve’s gym. “Do you think he’d mind if I stopped by?”

            Jarvis remained quiet for a moment. Steve imagined it—him?—relaying the question to Tony over the roar of that crazy rock music. “He would be delighted if you did, Captain.”

            Could disembodied voices be sarcastic? Steve wouldn’t put it past one created by Tony Stark. He sighed. “Well, if it’s all right, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

            It took Steve that long to reach Tony’s workshop by taking the stairs. By the time he reached it, sweat made his shirt cling to his skin uncomfortably. He hesitated outside the door, listening to the faint strains of whatever that band was—oh, right, AC/DC—singing “Back in Black.”

            Before Steve worked up the courage to knock, the door slid open on its own. Steve winced at the exponential increase in the music’s volume. Tony noticed immediately and yelled, “Jarvis, turn off the music!”

            Instantly, the racket disappeared. Tony wiped his oil-covered hands on his blue jeans. “Steve?”

            “Tony, I—” Steve took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you. I—”

            “Don’t worry about it,” Tony interrupted. When Steve tried to protest, Tony waved him off. “I’m serious. Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. C’mere. Come on. I want to show you something.”

            Steve followed Tony curiously into the mess of a workshop. To his surprised, Tony bypassed all the whirling, beeping, spinning, Howard-esque gadgets and instead led him to a typewriter—no, computer, Steve would remember all this stuff. Before Steve could see the screen, Tony caught his arm. “I’ve been doing some research. Apparently, every year for nearly seventy years, the _New York Post_ has done an article about the same female World War II vet who waits at the same New York club every night for her date, who went MIA in the war. It’s pretty special, okay? She’s a pretty special lady. I think you should take a look.”   

            “I don’t know, Tony—”

            “No, yeah, I think you should look at it.” Tony spun Steve around to face the computer. Steve rolled his eyes at the manhandling, then focused on the article.

            _August 15, 1945_

 _While the rest of the world celebrates the end of the war, Peggy Carter waits for her lost beau Steve Rogers in_ _New York_ _’s The Stork Club. Rogers, a Captain in the United States Army, is presumed dead after his plane was lost over the_ _Atlantic_ _. Carter, however, insists on remaining in the club._

_“He promised me a dance. He might be a bit late, but he wouldn’t break his promise.”_

The corners of Steve’s eyes burned. He looked down and away to hide it from Tony. He couldn’t sort his thoughts out enough to speak. Why would Tony have thought that this was good?...Peggy, waiting there, oh, Peggy… _“A week next Saturday, at The Stork Club. Don't you dare be late.”…_ why had he promised her—so stupid!—

            “Hey. You. Cap.” Tony’s voice snapped Steve back to attention. “What did I say, Steve? I said every year. Every year they do an article about her.” Steve didn’t need to look at Tony to know he was grinning as he clattered away at that dumb computer. “Every year including this year.”

            Steve stiffened. Slowly, he looked up, taking in Tony’s crooked grin. “This…this year?”

            Tony nodded. “Yeah. Sure thing. Take a look.”

            Disbelievingly, Steve looked back up at the computer screen. A much more colorful newspaper banner at the top of the screen read Monday, May 28, 2012. Below it, an elderly woman in a neat skirt eyed the camera sharply from behind the bar. Steve’s breath caught. He recognized that look. He’d seen that look when Peggy asked him how he felt—taller!—when she fired a gun at him to test his shield, when she kissed him good-bye. “Peggy!”

            Wordlessly, Tony moved the article so Steve could read the text below.

            _Sixty-seven years after the end of the Second World War and sixty-eight since her date Steve Rogers’ plane went down over the Atlantic, Army veteran Peggy Carter still waits for him by the bar at the Stork Club._

_“I can’t give up hope,” she says from her perch on a bar stool. “What people are missing these days is faith. Steve promised me he’d take me dancing here. Now, he might be a little late, but does that mean I should give up? No. I know he’ll show up someday. He’s never broken a promise to me before. It’s not in his nature.”_

_Most women of her time left the Army after the war and went back home to raise families. Not Peggy. She worked for the_ _U.S._ _Armed Forces as both a secretary and, as she puts it, “in more classified positions,” until her retirement in 1988. Even today, at 94, she volunteers at her local VA branch._

_“I believe I have a duty to this country,” Peggy Carter says. “It makes mistakes, as all countries do, but I find it always returns to its ideals of courage, freedom, and integrity.”_

_Like Steve Rogers, the captain Peggy Carter still waits for by the bar at the Stork Club. In her words, “All you have to have is a little faith.”_

Steve’s chest tightened as he stared at the photo of defiant, hopeful Peggy. She was alive, thank God! She was alive and still the Peggy Carter he remembered and loved. She might be a little older, but Steve quickly realized that didn’t matter at all. If she could have faith in a scrawny asthmatic kid from Brooklyn, then he could be faithful to a stubborn old British woman.

            Quickly, Steve came to a decision. “Tony, can you drive me somewhere?”

            Tony grinned hard enough that Steve worried about his jaw falling off. Oh, he definitely liked the younger Stark better. “You’ve got it, Cap. Better look sharp, though. Agent Carter’s been waiting for a long time.”

.......

            Hours later, Steve fidgeted with his tie in the passenger seat of one of Tony’s cars. “Stop it, Steve. You look great!” Tony said without looking away from traffic.

            “How would you know?” Steve groused. “Oh, gosh, maybe I shouldn’t have worn this uniform. I should have gone with the suit and tie, shouldn’t I have?”

            “No, I’m serious! You look great!” As they paused at a red light, Tony caught Steve by his shoulders. “In this Army uniform, you look the way she remembers you, right? My mom always said the men sure did look sharp when they came home in their uniforms.” When the light changed, Tony turned his attention back to the road but kept one hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Trust me. You look great. You’ll do just fine. Now, stop fussing, okay?”

            Steve took one last look at the brown uniform in the mirror. “Gosh, look at me,” he said softly. “It’s like I’ve fallen back in time.”

            “Can’t really look at you, champ,” Tony muttered, though he did spare Steve a glance. “Really? Like going back in time? Is that a good thing?”

            “Tonight? Yeah. It sure as heck is.” Steve grimaced as they slowed by the Stork Club. “Oh, I don’t know—”

            “You fought Nazis. You can go get a girl.” When Steve tried to readjust his tie one last time, Tony slapped his hand away. “Cut that out. You look fine! Go get ‘em, hot stuff,” he yelled after Steve as he pulled away from the curb.

            To be honest, Steve didn’t feel like “hot stuff.” He felt silly, but Peggy was just on the other side of that door. That was more than enough incentive for him to stride into the Stork Club with his head held high.

            The club had changed over the past seventy years. Now, it was all loud music—probably the stuff Tony really liked, Steve thought with some disgust—and flashing lights. Only the bar remained the same. Steve glanced along it. His heart sank when he didn’t see his pretty bright-eyed girl. “Oh, no.”

            Maybe he was early. Maybe she was late. Steve tried desperately to convince himself, as he sat down at the bar, that nothing terrible had happened. Peggy was still alive. She had to be.

            “Do you want a drink?”

            Steve nodded at the bartender. “Just a Budweiser, please.” He needed something to keep his hands occupied or he would punch a hole through this bar. “Thank you,” he said as the bartender pushed the beer across the counter.

            “Sure. So are you some kind of reenactor or something?” When Steve frowned, the man elaborated, “The uniform. It looks pretty nice. Are you a World War II reenactor?”

            “Uh, no, sir.” Tony would keep talking, but Steve wasn’t Tony. He didn’t want to attract attention. He just wanted Peggy.

            Where was she?

            Steve was halfway through his second beer and on the verge of using his—what was it?—his cell phone to call Tony to rescue him when the door jingled open. The bartender looked up with a knowing smile. “Back again, ma’am?”

            “I have a date, Jack. You know that.”

            “Yes, Ms. Carter. I do know that. The usual?”

            “Of course. I can’t go without my—”

            The woman’s voice cut off with a gasp. Steve squeezed the beer bottle so hard that it cracked. Slowly, he turned to face Peggy.

            Her white hair was tightly curled, and she was stooped over slightly, but her piercing gaze was exactly the same as Steve remembered. Peggy’s eyes widened. At first, she took a step back. Steve’s stomach clenched. _Please recognize me, please recognize me, pleasePeggypleasepleaseplease—_ Then Peggy squared her shoulders and shuffled forward. With a long-suffering sigh, she looked Steve up and down. “You’re late.”

            Steve made a strangled sound that would have been a laugh if the lump in his throat hadn’t gotten in the way. “Peggy—”

            “I knew it.” Peggy wrapped her arms around him with surprising strength. “I knew you would come.”

            “Peggy—” and then Steve was crying, but it didn’t matter because Peggy was right there in his arms. He tried to hold her tightly enough so she would never slip away as he struggled to explain everything at once. “I was frozen on ice—I didn’t know—they—I mean, the government, SHIELD, you know, they—they found me and woke me up, and I thought you were—like Bucky, like everyone, Peggy—”

            “Hush,” Peggy soothed. “Steve, it’s all right. I’m all right. At least you’re here.”

            Steve closed his eyes tightly and pressed a kiss to Peggy’s forehead. “I missed you.”

            Peggy laughed abruptly and pulled away just enough to look up at Steve. “I missed you, too. You know, I didn’t expect you to be on time, but sixty-eight years is a long time to be late.”  
           

             “I’m sorry—”

            “Don’t be. You saved a lot of people by crashing that plane.” Peggy tugged at Steve’s tie. “And you still came back for me,” she added wonderingly, “even though I’m ninety-four.”

            “So am I,” Steve pointed out. “I don’t want anyone but you. If that’s okay,” he added quickly.

            Peggy rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s okay. Oh, look, my drink’s here. Sit down.” She rolled her eyes at the bartender’s stunned expression. “Steve, this is Jack Thompson. Jack, this is Captain Steve Rogers. Now, he’s not too late, is he?”

            “Captain—Captain America?”  
           

             Steve mostly hid his wince. “Yes, sir.”

            “So that really is your uniform! I mean, you really are—” Jack took a deep breath, quickly bringing himself under control. “Everything is on the house. If you need anything, just ask, and it’s yours.”

            Steve twined his fingers with Peggy’s. “Well, thank you, but I think I’ve got everything I need right here. Although—Peggy, are you still up for that dance?”

            Peggy smirked. “I thought you’d never ask.”  
          

           As Steve slowly led Peggy to the dance floor, the other patrons quieted and moved out of the way. Peggy’s steps were smaller and less certain than they had once been, but when he looked back at her, her eyes sparkled merrily. By the time the two of them reached the center of the dance floor, the entire club was silent. Steve cleared his throat. “Uh…do you have ‘We’ll Meet Again’?”

            As the first strains of the big band echoed out of the speakers, Steve put one hand on Peggy’s waist and the other on her shoulder. “Like this?”

            Peggy nodded. “Just follow me.”

            As they swayed back and forth beneath the Stork Club’s colored lights, Steve laid his cheek on Peggy’s head. She closed her eyes and leaned against him, humming along to the familiar tune. Steve was no singer, not like Tony or Bucky, but he still whispered the words in Peggy’s ear. “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day…”

            When the song ended, Peggy and Steve still swayed for a moment. He sighed and brought her hands up to his lips. “You’re an amazing dancer.”

            “You’re not half-bad yourself.”

            Both of them jumped when applause filled the room. Steve glanced around the club at all the cheering people before he looked back down at Peggy. “Want to take a walk?”

            Steve and Peggy wandered the streets of New York for what felt like hours. After all, they had seventy years of missed stories to share. Steve worried that walking so much wouldn’t be good for Peggy, but she made him walk slowly and stopped him whenever she needed a break. “We’ve both had to learn our limits.”  
           

            “Don’t I know it. Hey, look! That’s where I live now.”

            Peggy peered up at the massive skyscraper. “Stark Tower.”

            “Actually, it’s the Avengers’ Tower now. Since, you know, it’s not just me in there anymore. Whoa!” Tony held his hands up in surrender when Peggy spun around and aimed a pistol at his arc reactor. “Okay. Wow. You’re spry, for an older woman.”

            Peggy snorted. “Thank you. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure…?”  
           

            Steve rolled his eyes. “Tony, this is Agent Peggy Carter. Peggy, this is Tony Stark. Believe it or not, he’s a much better man than his father.”

            Tony frowned. “Of course I am. I’m amazing. I’m spectacular. I should tell you all about it sometime. I should tell you all about it now, actually. Wouldn’t that be great? I told you that you looked fine, Steve. Doesn’t he look fine, Peggy? He was being all fussy and nervous about it. It was kind of annoying.”

            “You’re kind of annoying,” Steve grumbled. “If you’re going to tell Peggy all that, then we should get inside, right? Sit down somewhere. Hey, how about we go back to the tower and talk? Would that be good?”  
           

            Peggy gazed up at the enormous skyscraper again. “As long as you have an elevator, I should do just fine,” she said wryly, “although it is getting rather late, isn’t it?”

            “Oh. Of course. Right, well, Tony and I can give you a ride back home—”

            “Hey, wait a second, now, Peggy doesn’t have to go home. We’ve got plenty of room for her to spend the night in the tower. Quite a few nights, actually,” Tony added under his breath.

            Peggy brightened. “Really? That would be wonderful. I’d like to meet the rest of you superheroes. It’d be like the old days, really, back when we were chasing after Germans.”  
           

            “Yeah, yeah, it would be awesome. Hey, Natasha—Agent Romanov, Black Widow? She has lots of names. Anyway, she’s a huge fan of yours, right? It’s hilarious. She’s almost as huge of a fan of you as Agent Coulson is of—” Tony stumbled, suddenly cognizant of what he was saying. Instinctively, Steve reached out a hand to steady him. Tony swallowed. “Right. Anyway, she’s a huge fan of yours. Um. You should probably…stay the night. Yeah. Several nights. Forever? Because Steve would like that. He’s glaring at me right now, but he knows it’s true. You know it’s true, Steve. I’m trying to help out true love here!”

            Peggy frowned. “Are you saying I should move into Stark—I mean, Avengers Tower?”

            “You don’t have to,” Steve cut in. “We’ll just give you a ride home. It’s okay, Peggy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            At that, Peggy scowled. “Now, wait just a minute. What if I want to move in? I’m not going to live forever, am I?” When Steve flinched, Peggy squeezed his hand and softened her voice. “I’m ninety-four years old. I know what I want. Moving in with you would be grand.”

            The tightness that had coiled around Steve’s chest ever since he had woken up eased slightly. “You really mean it? You’re not just saying that because Tony—”

            Steve stopped talking abruptly. For the second time in his life, Peggy Carter was kissing him.

            It wasn’t the same as their first kiss. Seventy years changed a lot. Still, Steve closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Peggy. He thought he liked his second kiss better. There was no good-bye in this kiss. There was just a hint of forever.

            Steve sort of thought Peggy moving into the tower would be grand, too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this idea has been done a million times, but I couldn't fight the urge to write about Steve finding Peggy after all those years. It was intense but fun, and I'm glad I did it.  
> Once again, if you've never seen Casablanca, rent it. It's brilliant. Also, go listen to "We'll Meet Again," as performed by Vera Lynn. It was one of the most popular songs during WWII. It really gives you a feel for that era.  
> OH! Another note--The Stork Club in New York City closed in 1965. It'd had some issues with the mob as well as some other problems, though it was very popular. For the purposes of this story, I kept it open and tried to imagine it in the present day.  
> Edited 10 June 2014. Fixed the formatting and took out a couple phrases that made me wince. If you see anything else that needs to be edited, tell me.


End file.
